Baseball's Unwritten Rules: Tracking the 2018 season

Major League Baseball’s 2018 rulebook is 169 pages long. It covers everything from the legal pitching delivery to the correct way for the umpire to shout “Play ball” to officially start the game. There’s a glossary for common terms, diagrams of the field and, of course, a few notes on pine tar usage.

Yet that’s not the totality of what’s allowed in the professional ranks. At least, not according to the players. While umpires do their best to call games based on the official rules, big leaguers police themselves with their own unwritten rules. Breaking one of these rules can result in verbal abuse from an opponent at best, an outright benches-clearing brawl at worst. at These bylaws are as notorious as they are senseless and they’ve become tougher and tougher to pin down.

Don’t worry. Yahoo Sports is here to help. Throughout the season we’ll be tracking instances of these rules being broken by doing the unthinkable — writing them down.

Follow along below:

Boston Red Sox relief pitcher Joe Kelly, left, throws a punch at New York Yankees’ Tyler Austin, center, as they fight during the seventh inning of a baseball game at Fenway Park in Boston, Wednesday, April 11, 2018. At right is Boston Red Sox first baseman Mitch Moreland. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

The baseball world has plenty of thoughts on the unwritten rules, as Yahoo Sports’ experts have covered time and time again. Still, the rules exist. Players continue to break them. And punishments get doled out over 162 games. They don’t always make sense, but they seem to matter a whole lot to a bunch of players and old-timers.

Notice an unwritten rule that was broken, or have a new idea for how to punish offenders? Drop a comment below as we work through all of this together.